Dr Sovath Bong, archaeologist and President of the Royal University of Fine Arts, invites us to explore the wonders of Cambodia's past with him in this presentation. Archaeological research into Cambodia's past began in the late 19th century revealing the hidden treasure of now-famous Angkor Wat, the largest religious site in the world. Most pre-Angkor (before 1100ce) objects recovered, such as statuary of Vishnu, Krishna, Balarāma and Ganesha expressed a strong Indian influence long before Buddhism, also arising in India, became the dominate religion. Thousands of wonderful artifacts have been recovered and are treasured cultural and World Heritage objects conserved with care today.

Trained in Archaeology and Anthropology at the Royal University of Cambodia and at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Dr Bong led archaeology investigations at Angkor Borei, Ba Phnom and at pre-Angkor sites along the Mekong River as well as conducted ethnographic research for the World Bank on World Heritage Site Management and Conservation before being appointed the Deputy Director General of Cultural Heritage, Ministry of Culture and Fine Art for the Kingdom of Cambodia. He became the President of the Royal University of Fine Arts in 2009 and continues in that position.

Time: 6:30pm, September 26, 2017

Location: Sharp Auditorium, Hamilton Building, Denver Art Museum

Free Admission, RSVP requested

Ticketing through DAM: Call 720-913-0130, stop by the ticketing desk in the museum, or click here to reserve online. Create an account, or sign in with your DAM member number to finish the purchase. Prices are for AAA lecture only and do not include gallery admission.

Artist Melissa Furness will speak about her recent creative work and research in China as an artist in residence with RedGate Gallery and as an instructor of art with the International College of Beijing through the University of Colorado Denver and China Agricultural University. Furness’ studies have focused on historical sites throughout China with a look at transformed histories and Chinese Scholar Rocks. To Chinese artists, rocks are the basic building blocks of landscape painting. Furness’ work addresses these notions of the sublime landscape in contemporary terms, as well as object-oriented philosophy that maintains that objects exist independently of human perception. It is the “translations” and reinterpretations of the artifact through which Furness’ art work explores the life of the art object and the environments that they inhabit.

Ticketing through DAM: Call 720-913-0130, stop by the ticketing desk in the museum, or click here to reserve online. Create an account, or sign in with your DAM member number to finish the purchase. Prices are for AAA lecture only and do not include gallery admission.

Ticket prices in addition to general admission:AAA Members freeStudents / Teachers / Docents $5DAM members $7General Public $10

Born in Guangdong at the beginning of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in 1966, Xiaoze Xie's work has remained deeply affected by the loss of tradition, culture, and learning since moving to the US in 1992. His most recent series traces the practice of banning books in China and explores the history of censorship, social memory, and political discourse.

Ticketing through DAM: Call 720-913-0130, stop by the ticketing desk in the museum, or click here to reserve online. Create an account, or sign in with your DAM member number to finish the purchase. Prices are for AAA lecture only and do not include gallery admission.

The Logan Lecture series is sponsored by Vicki and Kent Logan in affiliation with DAM Contemporaries, a DAM support group.The Xiaoze Xie lecture is co-sponsored by Asian Art Association and Curator's Circle.

Dr. Rowan Flad, John E. Hudson Professor of Archaeology, Harvard University, shares the findings of his work in Gansu, China on the Tao River Archaeological Project (TRAP), 2012-2017. Tracing the nature of technology and technological change migrating along the routes of the proto Silk Roads, and the changes wrought on the culture and society of the area by the introduction of that technology, Dr Flad discovered a complexity that radically transformed material culture and human lives in Northwest China about 4000 years ago. That transformation laid the groundwork for the Chinese Bronze Age. Reception following talk.

Rowan K. Flad is the John E. Hudson Professor of Archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. He holds an A.B. from the University of Chicago and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. At Harvard he has served as the Archaeology Program Director, Director of Undergraduate Studies, and Department Chair for the Department of Anthropology and the Chair of the Standing Committe on Archaeology, and is an affiliated faculty member of the Inner Asian and Altaic Studies Department. He also serves on the academic board (and was a founding board member) of the Institute for Field Research and serves on the founding board of the Esherick-Ye Family Foundation. His research is focused on the emergence and development of complex society during the late Neolithic period and the Bronze Age in China. This work incorporates interests in diachronic change in production processes and technology, the intersection between ritual activity and production, the role of animals in early Chinese society - particularly their use in sacrifice and divination, and the processes involved in social change in general. He has conducted excavations at a salt production site in the eastern Sichuan Basin, regional archaeological survey in the Chengdu region focusing on prehistoric settlement patterns and social evolution, and currently directs an international collaborative survey and excavation project in the Tao River Valley in Gansu. This project focuses on technological change in various domains and investigates the formation processes of community interaction involved in the development of the Proto-Silk Road. Current research and writing projects focus on several aspects of social complexity including: specialized production and technology, the anthropology of value, mortuary analysis, archaeological landscapes, interregional interaction, cultural transmission, and animal and plant domestication.

Time: 6:30pm, December 15, 2017

Location: Sharp Auditorium, Hamilton Building, Denver Art Museum

Free Admission, RSVP requested

RSVP through DAM: Call 720-913-0130, stop by the ticketing desk in the museum, or reserve online. Create an account, or sign in with your DAM member number to finish the reservation.

Professor Bentley’s talk examines three Chinese incised lacquer folding screens produced between 1665 and 1800. All three screens include segments depicting Europeans hunting exotic animals and parading with gifts; two screens specifically indicate that the Europeans are Dutch. Analysis highlights the ways in which these Chinese screens borrowed “foreigner” imagery from earlier Japanese Nanban screens, and also from earlier paintings of Mongols hunting, and those “barbarian” constructs were even marketed back to Europe.

Tamara H. Bentley is an Associate Professor of Asian Art at Colorado College, where she has been on the faculty since 2001. In her earlier research, she focused on Chinese paintings and prints of the late Ming and early Qing periods. Recently, she has shifted her attention to the international movement of art objects both in and from the East Asian maritime circuits in the early modern period. As part of this larger endeavor, she has been working on Chinese lacquer folding screens, export competition between China and Japan, and the complex layering of cross-cultural contacts in early modern trade.